


Across the Universe

by aralias



Category: Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Episode: s03e11 Utopia, Fobwatch, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-17
Updated: 2011-04-17
Packaged: 2017-10-18 06:54:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/186190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aralias/pseuds/aralias
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the best_enemies prompt: <i>Eight/any Master. Both chameleon-arched, both human, neither realises (at least at first) who the other is.</i> In which the Doctor is an oversexed ex-soldier, and the Master is a sweet old professor trying to get the human race to Utopia.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Across the Universe

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Сквозь всю вселенную](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6273427) by [Kollega](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kollega/pseuds/Kollega)



_Sometimes, in his dreams, he is a god. Sometimes he is the most powerful man in the galaxy, and other times he is just an ordinary man in extraordinary circumstances. No matter who he is, though, there is always a terrible choice. The fate of everything that ever has, is, or will be is in his hands, and every choice seems like the wrong one._

_It’s always a relief to wake up and discover it’s already the end of the universe, and there’s nothing he can do about it._

*

It began as a normal day. Johnsmith awoke, pushed away the sweaty sheets and splashed his face with cold water from a bucket he’d wedged under a dripping pipe some weeks back. As usual he found himself missing showers, something he’d only read about (the idea of wasting that much electricity and water on mere grooming was absurd) but which he could imagine quite vividly on mornings like this. Then, slightly cleaner, he breakfasted in the mess hall, where he managed to secure a date for the evening (date, of course, being another word from the old days, which here meant simply sex and brief companionship) with a woman called Paulena he’d had his eye on for a while. He ran into Yana’s assistant on the way out, kissed her on her blue cheek, and dropped in to see the professor before practice.

Johnsmith was an ex-soldier and woke every morning before the first bell, glad to be rid of his nightmares. Yana meanwhile was an academic and, though mild mannered the rest of the time, could be extremely grouchy before noonday.

“I’ve brought you some coffee,” Johnsmith explained, as he always did before Yana could kick him out.

“I’ve told you before that’s not necessary,” Yana said crossly, though he took the metal mug anyway. “I have my own coffee machine right here, and Chantho, as you know, has her own internal milk…”

“That’s why I only brought one- _Ow, Yana._ ” Yana had batted his hands away from the footprint, which he had been absentmindedly re-wiring. Johnsmith rubbed his wounded hand. “How could you?”

“Very easily,” Yana told him. “Now, haven’t you got some work of your own to do? Surely there must be some young men left in this commune who don’t know how to kill yet, and could use your help.” It was one of his pet grievances, and Johnsmith had tired of pointing out to him that he was only a teacher and wasn’t doing the killing himself: that he was, in fact, saving the lives of his men by teaching them how to repel the Futurekind. There had never been a shortage of more interesting arguments they could have instead.

“As it happens,” Johnsmith said, “you’re right. I should go.” He checked his working watch. “Actually, I should have gone about five minutes ago. How could you keep me talking like this? No, don’t answer. I know, I know, you’re fiendishly attracted to me. But we shouldn’t let that come before the good of the community.”

Yana swatted at him with a nearby wrench. “Get out of here.”

These days you had to take your pleasures where you found them. Johnsmith’s were warm water, sex, books about the old days, cards, and Professor Yana. They were two old men in a community made up primarily of young people. That alone would have been enough to make him seek Yana out, but he would have left him alone after a while if Yana hadn’t proved extremely interesting, kind and intelligent, if a little stodgy, a little slow to laugh or to have fun when he could be working. He had once claimed not to know how to play poker, and to have no interest to ever learning it, but then Johnsmith didn’t mix his pleasures.

Today he was teaching his boys (some of whom really were boys who should really still be with their mamas) a form of hand-to-hand combat that maximised the impact produced with minimum force. This particular discipline involved a lot of high-pitched vowel sounds, which he told the recruits was to help frighten off the enemy, and which they maintained was ridiculous until he neatly incapacitated five of them with one _hi-yah._

Late into the afternoon he realised Chantho was watching the practice from the sidelines. She waved shyly, and he excused himself from the men.

“How long have you been here, sweetheart? You should have said something.”

“Chan you were very busy tho. Chan I did not want to disturb-”

“You’re not disturbing me,” Johnsmith assured her. He wiped away some of the sweat on his face with the edge of his shirt. “What’s wrong?”

“Chan Professor Yana has asked that you visit him in his laboratory tho,” Chantho explained, very sweetly attempting to hide the fact that she found what he had just done to be deeply disgusting.

Johnsmith grinned. “How intriguing. Well, I can come right now, if it’s urgent.”

“Chan I do not think-”

 _“CLASS DISMISSED,”_ Johnsmith bellowed back to his pupils. “Perl, work on your low kicks tonight; Rhodaye, I want you to drill those dexterity exercises we talked about last week, you’re still too slow; and the rest of you work on your _hi-yahs_ , they’re very important.” He offered Chantho his arm for the walk back to Yana’s rooms, but she declined politely. Insects didn’t sweat.

“What did you do?” Yana demanded the moment he was through the door. He wrinkled his nose. “And why do you smell so foul? You’ve just come straight from practise, haven’t you?”

“I thought it was important,” Johnsmith protested.

“And so it is,” Yana said, “but I can’t work with you like this. You’re going to have to bathe. Chantho will show you where it is.”

Johnsmith goggled. “You have a bath?”

“Chan it is heated by the excess heat of the footprint tho,” Chantho explained showing him where a large tub of water was pushed against the side of the wall, disguised behind a sofa. There was a thin mist rising off it. “Chan,” she said hurriedly as he began to pull his clothes off, “I will leave you to clean yourself in peace tho.” He heard her shut the lab door as she left.

“Why did you never tell me about this?” he yelled back to Yana, who was fussing around over the other side of his device.

“You never asked,” Yana told him with what was almost a smirk. “I assumed you _liked_ being covered in grime.”

“Oh _my_ -” Johnsmith groaned, as he lowered himself into the hot water. “This is… Yana, I’m fairly sure I love you. I’ll never touch the footprint again, I promise.”

“That would be rather beside the point,” Yana said. “Why do you think I asked you back here today?”

“Because you missed me? Frankly, I’m finding it hard to care-”

“Whatever you did to it this morning has made the footprint twelve percent more effective, John. Twelve! I mean, it still doesn’t _work_ -”

“What, and you want me to do it again?” Johnsmith laughed. “I’m very sorry, Yana, but I think you’ve wasted your bathwater. I was just fooling around-”

“Ah,” Yana said, moving around the device, “but,” he realised he could see into the bathtub and turned around to face the wall, “this isn’t the first time this has happened. Last Tuesday, I observed the same thing-”

“Well... that's a coincidence, surely...”

“And the week before that,” Yana persisted, “the same. I’m beginning to think the only reason it functions at all is because you keep ‘fooling around’ with it.” He gestured behind him. “There’s a, er, clean shirt hanging on the door. I don’t have any towels, I’m afraid-”

“So basically,” Johnsmith said, reluctantly rising from the warm water and pulling on Yana’s shirt and his own dirty trousers, “you’ve concluded that I’m some sort of a secret genius.”

“I haven’t concluded anything,” Yana said, “but if you can make it work – well, it’s worth a try, don’t you think?”

“To get out of this dump?” Johnsmith asked. “Absolutely.” Ignoring the fact that he was still extremely wet, he strode over to Yana’s machine, but for the first time ever he felt absolutely no desire to touch any part of it.

“Well?” Yana asked.

Johnsmith turned to him, which clearly made Yana realise he was standing too close because he took a step back. “I don’t know. Nothing shouts ‘rewire me.’”

 _“Nothing?”_ Yana repeated in disbelief.

“Well, I could start pulling things out at random…”

“No, no, no, no, no,” Yana said. “That’s not the point. Let me see – yes,” he began unlacing his tie, and Johnsmith had time to waggle his eyebrows, before the other man had blindfolded him with the necktie.

“You know, Yana,” he said in the darkness, “all these years and I never suspected you were into this sort of thing. You should have told me.”

“Hush,” Yana said, “I’m trying to distract your conscious mind, not seduce you.”

“Well, if you were, this wouldn’t be a bad way to go about it. The bath was a particularly nice-”

 _“Incredible,”_ Yana gasped, and Johnsmith realised there was a substantial amount of wiring in his hands.

“What?” he asked Yana. “What’s it doing?”

“The left bank has just lit up.” He clapped Johnsmith on the back. “Keep going!”

“It’s actually working?”

“I don’t know how you’re doing it, but yes, it’s working.” Yana paused. “I suppose I should be jealous. I’ve been working on this for seventeen years, and you just waltz in here and make it work by accident.”

“I could never have built this,” Johnsmith told him, blindly pulling out more connections and jamming them into other slots, “you’re wonderful, Yana. You’re a real genius. And I – Hmm, what’s this?” he held up a little box attached to a long wire.

“…It’s the boost reversal circuit,” Yana said, “but I don’t see how it can be relevant…”

“All right,” Johnsmith said, going to put it back down.

“Although,” Yana said, “yes,” he said thoughtfully, “we _could_ reverse the polarity of its flow, couldn’t we? That might,” he took the box out of Johnsmith’s hands, “just…” There was a whirr and then a giant electrical fizz that sounded as though he had just electrocuted himself.

“Yana?” Johnsmith tugged at the back of the blindfold, but it was knotted tightly, so he pushed the tie up like a bandana.

Yana stood a few feet away, staring at his fully operational machine in wonder. Johnsmith touched him on the arm, and he turned, his eyes shining. “I can’t believe it.”

“Congratulations,” Johnsmith said and kissed him gently.

He wasn’t sure what he’d expected Yana to do at this point, but what he did do (kiss back, his soft hands around Johnsmith’s jaw) was more than good enough.

“I’m sorry,” Johnsmith said eventually, “perhaps I should have done that sooner.”

“The kiss or the rocket?” Yana asked. “Not,” he said, gathering himself, “that it matters, of course.” He moved away to the comm unit, and started to type in Atillo’s name, hampered by Johnsmith who was leaning on the delete key.

“Get off,” Yana scolded. “There are people out there who’ve been waiting their entire life to fly-”

“Then they can wait a bit longer, can’t they?” Johnsmith reasoned. “They don’t know what they’re missing, whereas I-” He tried to kiss Yana again, but the other man ducked away, surprisingly nimble for an elderly professor. Johnsmith laughed. “Come on. I made your machine work, you kissed me back-”

“And you consider that a binding contract?” Yana asked.

“No, but-”

Yana shook his head. “You’ve had seventeen years, John. At any point you could have said-”

“I want you,” Johnsmith told him, “now. They can wait for an hour. Please.”

Yana considered him for a moment, and then nodded his head briskly as he did when he was thinking. “Well, you’ll have to take that ridiculous blindfold off first.”

Johnsmith beamed, tugged the tie forcibly off his head, and then the rest of his clothing, and followed Yana’s crooked finger into his bedroom. Among the commune only five of them had bedrooms of their own, and Johnsmith’s had a leaking pipe, an uncomfortable bed and no windows. Yana’s window had curtains and he had somehow managed to acquire a real bed with springs that creaked as Johnsmith sat on it and pulled Yana (still mostly dressed) down on top of him.

“I don’t really know what to do,” Yana confided, as Johnsmith unbuttoned his trousers for him. “I’m afraid I don’t have any-”

“Don’t worry,” Johnsmith assured him, “I came prepared.”

“I’m sure you did,” Yana said. “The rumours about you are quite shocking, you know.”

Johnsmith grinned and moved down Yana’s body. “I think you mean complimentary, and besides ¬– I like to consider it practise. I did it all for you.”

“Ha,” Yana said.

“And because it was fun,” Johnsmith conceded, and took Yana’s cock into his mouth. As Yana had intimated, he had had a lot of practise, and a good deal of natural talent to begin with. By now, it was almost second nature to relax his throat and suppress the gag reflex, as though it was something he’d been born knowing how do. He sucked Yana off quickly, relishing the way the professor’s hands stroked his face while he worked, and the way he muttered his name throughout, as he did while working on a difficult problem.

“That tastes absolutely disgusting,” Yana told him after Johnsmith had kissed him. “I don’t know what you see in it.”

“It’s an acquired taste,” Johnsmith agreed, “but once you get the taste for it there’s no going back, I promise you.” He pressed his own erection into Yana’s thigh, and favoured him with his best leer. “Perhaps you’d simply prefer a different vintage.”

Yana looked at him like he was mad, and Johnsmith laughed. “All right,” he said, nuzzling Yana’s neck, “not that. What do you want to do, then? I could fuck you, if you like. I’m sure there’s some lube and a couple of condoms in my coat pocket.”

“And that’s what you want, is it?” Yana asked.

“No, not if you don’t,” Johnsmith said. It was a lie, but he didn’t want to frighten Yana off, or break him, if he didn’t want to be broken. He kissed Yana again, and guided his hand down over his erection. He moaned as soon as Yana began to caress him so the other man would think he was doing well, but this made Yana tut.

“Don’t humour me, Johnsmith. You can wait until I’ve actually started.”

“No more groaning,” Johnsmith assured him, “got it,” and forced himself to relax into the arm Yana had wrapped around him. It was a slow and loving orgasm, punctuated by many thoughtful kisses. Yana took his time, watching the man in his arms intently, and when Johnsmith came into his hand Yana’s look became a mixture of open pride and possession.

“Well, that’s ruined it,” he said, wiping his hands carefully on a makeshift handkerchief. “Seventeen years of feigned indifference wasted. But I suppose you’ve always known. That I was in love with you, I mean,” he elaborated at Johnsmith’s enquiring look. “All those jokes – they weren’t really jokes, were they?”

“I knew,” Johnsmith agreed, as Yana settled down against his chest. “But I was never going to stay with you, so I thought it would be better… not to start.”

 _“Coward,”_ Yana said, though not unkindly.

“I’m afraid so,” Johnsmith said, because Yana was going with it, though really he thought it had been one of his more sensible decisions.

“What changed?” Yana asked. “How did we end up like this, if you were so decided?”

“…It feels like the end,” Johnsmith said, which wasn’t at all what he had been planning to say. He had been prepared to say something nice about the way the light from the working footprint had reflected in Yana’s eyes; how attractive pure happiness was. “We’re off to Utopia tomorrow, and who knows whether the perfect place will support all forms of perfect pleasure? Thomas More was a Christian, wasn’t he? I must have read that somewhere, and I’m afraid I’ve also read that they weren’t particularly keen on sex. I don’t want to get to paradise and find it’s all harps and clouds, and I missed my final- Oh, now, where are you going?”

“To call Captain Atillo,” Yana said, pulling his trousers back on. “You’ve had your final… er, experience. Now, Utopia!”

Johnsmith reached out, pulling him back by his half-buttoned waistcoat. “You know I didn’t mean that, Yana. No, Yana, I’m sorry, but you promised me an hour.”

“I did no such thing,” Yana blustered, but he was smiling as Johnsmith pulled at the watch-chain sticking out from his pocket.

“One hour,” Johnsmith told him, “and it’s only been,” he attempted to open Yana’s large silver fob watch, and utterly failed. “My word – Yana, have you glued this shut?”

“I think there must be a trick to it,” Yana said, taking it gently away from him. “I’ve never opened it before, because,” he said as he squeezed it open, “well, it’s broken…”

“If it’s broken, why do you have it?” Johnsmith asked, though now the watch was open with its top case facing towards him, he could see it was exactly the same as the broken watch he kept in his own coat pocket for good luck. Presumably Yana kept his for the same or similar reasons, though for as long as Johnsmith had known him he had been sceptical about the supernatural.

“So is it working?” he asked, trying to peer round Yana’s arms into the watch, but the professor snapped it shut.

“What happened to yours?” Yana asked in a pained voice. “This watch. You have this exact watch. Where is it?”

“You know, I was just thinking about it,” Johnsmith told him. “Have you always been psychic?” He laughed and pressed a kiss to the side of Yana’s hand. “Or have the powers developed as a result of our activities tonight? You know, there were plenty of ancient civilisations, who believed that sex and-”

“Be quiet, you stupid man,” Yana hissed. “The watch, where is it?”

“I don’t know,” Johnsmith said helplessly, because for a moment he really didn’t know where it was, and in fact couldn’t remember having ever owned a watch besides the one on his wrist.

Yana held up the silver case with its familiar swirls, and growled, _“Think harder.”_

“Its… in my coat pocket,” Johnsmith said, “back in the lab, by the bath. But it doesn’t work,” he called, following Yana back into the laboratory. “Yana? If you want the time, I have it right here,” he consulted his wristwatch, “it’s about 10 minutes to eight…. Oh. That reminds me, I was supposed to meet a girl at seven – I suppose that’s cancelled. Not that I would have wanted to spend the evening any other way…”

By this point Yana had found his watch. Johnsmith held out his hand and jerked his fingers, and after a moment’s pause Yana passed it to him. The metal felt warm to the touch. Presumably, Johnsmith thought, because it had been sitting by Yana’s bathtub for the last couple of hours. But was that right? He struggled to recall an earlier time in which he had held his lucky watch in his hand long enough to observe its temperature and concluded that he had never done so – he made his own luck, after all.

“You should open it,” Yana told him.

“It’s,” Johnsmith began, “broken,” he said slowly, because he wasn’t sure anymore. He’d never opened it, never even held it for very long. Perhaps it did work after all, but even if it did, Johnsmith thought, as he opened it, he had a watch at his wrist that worked perfectly no matter how many times he stuck his hands into icy buckets of water…

 _I’m half human on my mother’s side,_ a voice whispered gravely. _You want dominion over the living, yet all you do is kill… How! That’s good, isn’t it? Geronimo taught me that… Romana, take the coronet and run! They’re coming! Romana-_

It hurt to change back. Whichever one of them it was then yelled out as another heart grew in his chest, his windpipe thickened and morphed into a dual system, and his cells were flooded with Artron energy. It was definitely the Doctor, though, who peered at himself in the reflective surface of Yana’s bathtub, and said, in a disgusted tone,

“I can’t believe I’ve aged so badly.” He tried to smooth his skin out, stretching his mouth wide before letting it fall back into its former languor. His hands moved instead to his hair, but he already knew what had happened to it. “And I cut off my hair. _Great._ ” He made a noise of frustration. “It’ll take years to grow back. Don’t humans understand the importance of hair?” He tugged at it rather forlornly. “I should have left a note. Don’t cut your hair.” He squinted at his reflection again. “And, if you can, try not to grow old.”

“You might have added, Don’t teach children how to kill more effectively,” the man who had been Yana said. “And, if you can, try not to have sex with absolutely everyone you meet.”

“No, don’t you _dare_ belittle Johnsmith, Master,” the Doctor said, turning on him. “ _Don’t you dare._ He was a good man, I was happy being him. And I know that you’ve only been yourself for about 10 minutes, but I was much happier when you were Yana. I suppose you forgot to leave your own note warning him away from being kind and selfless.”

“You do realise you’re not wearing any clothes,” the Master said without flinching.

 _“Yes,”_ the Doctor said, though actually he had forgotten. He snatched up his former self’s trousers from the floor, and pulled them on, and then his shirt. It had dried, but it still smelt strongly of human sweat, and the Doctor felt some of the revulsion Chantho must have felt earlier as the smell hung around him.

“So,” the Master said, as the Doctor brushed the dust off Johnsmith’s coat, “did you follow me? Or did you find this enchanting destination on your own?”

The Doctor chuckled darkly. “I think that must have been my TARDIS’s idea of a gift. Much like one of the really terrible ones my three-headed aunt used to get me. You think you’ve destroyed your entire species, but it’s all right – _the Master’s_ still alive. Surprise.”

“You’ve _destroyed our species?”_ the Master repeated.

“I knew you’d pick up on that part,” the Doctor said. “It was all I could do. Destroy the Daleks, destroy the Time Lords. They’re all dead. Surely you must have noticed the emptiness by now. Why do you think I crawled away to the end of the universe?”

“Oh, I assumed you were running away,” the Master said, “that is your raison d’etra, after all, but I could never have imagined what from.”

“Just being me,” the Doctor said grimly.

He strode over to the monitor he had earlier stopped Yana accessing, and typed in Atillo’s name. “Ah, Captain,” he said, as the man’s face appeared, “this is Johnsmith on behalf of Professor Yana. Your rocket is ready to fly. Repeat, the rocket is ready to fly. Get ready for Utopia. Good luck.” He broke the connection before Atillo could respond, and turned back to the Master. “Come on. I don’t want to stay here any longer than I have to, and I’m not leaving you behind. Who knows what damage you could do to these people.”

“How considerate,” the Master said as they left the laboratory amidst a flurry of excited humans ready for the Promised Land. The Doctor tried not to look at them as he walked past. “Consideration for your precious humans, I mean,” the Master continued. “I don't know why you don't just change back, if it’s so terrible not to be among them.”

“It’s ruined now,” the Doctor said. “You know that.” And the truth was, he didn’t want to change back now he was himself again. The Master being alive was something. He wasn’t a god, he was just one member of a mostly dead species. He didn’t feel quite so damned now he knew he wasn’t the only one left.

Both of them knew where their TARDISes were being kept. The Doctor’s incongruous blue box had been brought in almost seventeen years ago, while the Master’s TARDIS (which had been more convincingly disguised as a broken pylon) had waited in the wastelands for about a decade before it was brought in during one of the scrap metal drives. They had both been shut away in the store room, unused because it was impossible to break them down or open the door of the police box. Professor Yana had all the right access codes, and Johnsmith had gone with him on a number of occasions to help carry larger pieces of debris.

There was a sheet of metal leaning against the police box’s door, but the Doctor shifted it easily and then turned to the Master. “Help me up?”

The Master gave him a look that implied it was greatly beneath his dignity, but allowed the Doctor to stand on his joined hands and reclaim the spare key from above the P.

“You should have switched to isomorphic controls years ago,” he said, laying his hand against the side of the pylon, which obligingly opened inwards like a door.

“I _like_ keys,” the Doctor protested, as he fitted it into the lock of his own ship and gave it a twist. The door swung open.

“Well,” he said, “I suppose this is goodbye. For now, at least. I’m sure you’ll turn up at some point. You usually do.”

“And we don’t ever have to speak of this again,” the Master assured him.

“No,” the Doctor said, relieved that he wouldn’t have to suffer the Master’s taunts about who had sucked whom off for all eternity. He was about to step inside, when he realised why this might be.

“I don’t know if it’s of any interest to you,” he told the Master, “but Johnsmith was in love with you – with Yana, all along.”

“Not enough, though,” the Master said, without denying it was important.

“No,” the Doctor said. “Sorry.”

The Master nodded, and they both returned to their ships.

*

_The dreams of a Time Lord are infinitely more complicated than those of a human, but sometimes the Doctor dreams he is an ordinary man (who dreams sometimes that he is a god) on his way across the universe to the perfect place._

*

**Author's Note:**

> [Before and after.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3673287/chapters/8121894)


End file.
